After Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk was condemned by the Soviet authorities in 1935, Shostakovich never plucked up the courage to compose another full-length opera. But in 1959, he took advantage of the relative artistic thaw during the Kruschev regime to compose a gently satirical operetta, Moscow, Cheryomushki. In later life, the composer dismissed his music as "boring, feeble and stupid". In some ways it is, but the naggingly memorable work includes some wicked parodies and decent show tunes, and it is hard to imagine it has ever been sung and played better than in the semi-staging by the Mariinsky Opera that Valery Gergiev conducted as part of the Shostakovich on Stage season.

This "musical comedy in three acts" pokes mild fun at life in the Soviet Union of the 1950s. Cheryomushki is a new housing development on the outskirts of Moscow, a kind of Soviet Welwyn Garden City, where everybody wants to live. Corrupt local officials try hard to frustrate their ambitions, but in the end, thanks to the building of a magic garden (a traditional Russian theme), everyone gets to live happily ever after.

It all races along at a good pace, with Gergiev driving everything for all it is worth. The semi-staging by Vasily Barkhatov - casual clothes, a few props and some pictorial screens - was certainly effective, though a full production would have made more of the dance episodes. Most of the singing was superb - especially from the mezzo Tatiana Pavlovskaya as the bookish Lidochka, and soprano Anastasia Belyaeva as the construction worker Lusya. Cheryomushki may not be a piece you need to see often, but a performance like this certainly makes it worthwhile.